Also on Wednesday, police officers in Lijiang, a tourist city in the northwest of Yunnan province, rescued a young man who spent a night lost on a mountain.

Thepaper.cn reported that the man, Zhang Da, a 20-year-old college student from Sichuan province, had been visiting Jade Water Village, a popular tourist attraction with three friends.

They had planned to climb a nearby mountain but Zhang grew bored of waiting for his friends and decided to set off on his own at around 3pm without telling the others.

But at around 7pm, Zhang called the police because he got lost and the battery on his phone was almost dead.

Around 40 police and firefighters conducted an 11-hour search for Zhang in the woods and mountains near the village overnight and located him at 8am the next morning.

According to the report, Zhang had kept walking in the almost freezing temperatures in the hope of finding the rescue team and later sheltered in bushes. He had a coat, some mooncakes and sweets to help him through the night.

“I was scared and cold, but awake. I just hid there and waited until the dawn to come out,” Zhang was quoted as saying.